How earning $30 too much a month keeps a cancer patient in Georgia from cheaper care

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Georgia hasn’t expanded Medicaid. Some people suffer more than others because of that coverage gap.

Amy Wilson, a conductor and artistic director of the Atlanta Philharmonic suffered from brain cancer but isn't able to get medicaid which makes it diffucult to pay her hospital bills.

Four years ago, her life and dream were put in jeopardy when doctors found a cancerous tumor in her brain. She had two choices: forgo chemo and surgery and possibly lose her life or get treatment and figure out how to pay for it later. At his budget signing in early May, surrounded by local and national reporters, Gov. Kemp said that “expanding Medicaid will take people off of their private sector insurance and put them on the government-run health care. That is going to cost more money in the short term, more money in the long term. So to me that does not make good budgeting sense to do that.”

“I’m not physically able to do any of those things for 20 hours a week,” Wilson said. “I struggle to do what I do, which is like five hours a week.”Many Georgia residents with medical needs who don’t qualify for Medicaid may not be getting diagnosed or treated in a timely manner, according to Dr. Catherine Burley, chief of adult medicine at the Family Health Centers of Georgia, a nonprofit clinic.

Right now, some of the most impoverished people in the state are missing out on care, Burley says, adding that there are plenty of adults who are afraid to go into the workforce because they worry they will lose the Medicaid coverage they have now, reserved only for the lowest income adults.

 

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How earning $30 too much a month keeps a cancer patient in Georgia from cheaper careGeorgia hasn’t expanded Medicaid. Some people suffer more than others because of that coverage gap.
Source: NPR - 🏆 96. / 63 Read more »